


being alone vs. loneliness

by ShanElinKerry



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, blink and you miss it hotchniss i guess, there's a difference between loneliness and being alone, those seven months when emily was "dead" were hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27010909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShanElinKerry/pseuds/ShanElinKerry
Summary: there's a difference between being alone and loneliness. seven months in Paris shows Emily how true that is.
Kudos: 6





	being alone vs. loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> this is pretty much a character study of Emily Prentiss after her "death" through when she first comes back to the BAU in season 7. it is my first Criminal Minds fanfic as well so I hope I did the character justice!
> 
> unbeta'd but proofread by me

It doesn’t bother her is the thing, being alone. Emily had grown up in a world, a family, where being on her own was not out of the ordinary. She can handle being alone.

But this is different. This is being completely alone and isolated from everyone in her life. This is Paris, with new identities and an assignment and an undeterminable amount of time before she sees a familiar face again. If she gets to see a familiar face again. 

She clutches the mug in her hand, letting the warmth permeate her hands and hopefully her heart.

There’s being alone and then there’s this. Loneliness. 

And loneliness is so much harder to handle. JJ had said that the team is looking for Doyle, that they’ll find him and bring him in somewhere he’ll never escape and Emily will get her life back. But Ian Doyle escaped a prison no one knew existed in North Korea. She knows there’s no prison on Earth he won’t find a way out of. This is her new reality, her new life. And that means no more BAU. 

She inhales sharply, the ache in her chest growing and gnawing at her heart. No more being blown away by the sheer amount of knowledge Reid has, or throwing quips back and forth with Morgan. No more girls’ nights with JJ and Garcia, shopping and drinking coffee and reveling in the fact that they aren’t at work for once. No more joking with Rossi, begging him to cook for the team at least once. No more looking out for Hotch and making sure he gets home to Jack at a reasonable time. No more Aaron, no more working together and having each other’s backs and grabbing a late dinner because they both stayed at the office too long. No more invitations to his place for dinner because she doesn’t have human food in her apartment and he does need to get home to Jack. No more Sergio keeping her company and filling the empty spaces of her home. 

She closes her eyes against the tears that have pooled up, letting a few fall before she wipes them away and steels herself against these emotions. 

Wallowing will not help her establish a new life and new patterns here. She has an assignment, a file folder from JJ and a life to lead in Paris. She can mourn the loss of her team, her family, but she has a job to do as well. She can’t wallow in what she lost, not right now. Right now, she has to get ready to leave the apartment and get to work. 

_3 weeks later_

Emily’s head snaps up, searches for her pinging phone. It’s a new one and she’s still adjusting to it, but sure enough, there’s a familiar notification on the screen. A smile tugs at her lips as she swipes open to the online scrabble app she’d found. It’s part of her routine, part of settling in. Playing a familiar game with someone who knows where. All she knows is “cheetobreath” just hit a double word score and Emily’s next move needs to be a good one.

It’s not everything and it doesn’t soothe the ache in her chest much but its something. It’s a start, a new thing to fill her time while she traipses around the city conducting surveillance and working on her new job. 

It’s a chance to adjust to her new life. No, the newest part of her life. This is her life. 

If Emily’s learned one thing, it’s that her life cannot be cut and defined in pieces. Nothing is that clear-cut. Her life with Interpol bled into her life with the BAU and now that life permeates her life here in Paris. Lauren Reynolds, Emily Prentiss, any of the identities handed over to her three weeks ago…they’re all the same person. Her feelings from each part of her life, each iteration of her, stay with her. She knows that. She can’t cut herself off from them completely so she’s learning to live with them. 

To live with the grief of losing six friends. Seven, she reminds herself. Ashley was part of the team too, long enough to make an impression and for Emily to miss her. So she acknowledges those feelings, doesn’t simply shove them in a box to forget about and never speak of again. She might be a compartmentalization queen but that does her no favors if she lets the grief and loss fester instead of dealing with it. 

So she builds new routines, finds her new normal. Online scrabble finds its way into that new normal. 

And if she has a constant partner named “cheetobreath,” well, that won’t hurt anyone. 

_Seven months later_

It’s the one phone call that could make Emily drop everything and run, no matter the consequences. It’s the one reason why she’d return to the states now, seven months after her “death,” when she knows Doyle isn’t dead. That even though he truly thinks her dead this time, she’d be willing to blow that cover. The best cover in the world and she would willing reveal the lie to him for this one thing.

Something happened to Declan. 

The moment she received Tom’s call she was in motion, grabbing her go-bag and tote before heading out of the office, using the other phone she has to book her ticket, filling in information from one her aliases that has become second nature to her. Tom tells her he’s flying back as well, but that she’d probably beat him to DC. 

Her mind races at that, thinking about how to best find Declan and putting together a plan for when she lands. He’ll be okay. Doyle won’t be able to find him. Even if she had blown Declan’s cover months ago when she was bleeding out in Boston, she knows that finding him, that getting to him will be impossible. Louise is the only person in the states who can get Doyle out of school right now. 

And then she lands and there’s a message on her phone from a name she hasn’t seen in months. 

**From Hotch: Doyle’s in custody at the BAU. It’s time.**

And so she shifts, getting into a cab and heading to Quantico. It’s time, after seven months, to reclaim the one thing Ian Doyle took from her. 

Her life.

Seven months ago, Ian Doyle killed Emily Prentiss and the woman who landed in Paris with JJ has spent those seven months hiding from him, from the people she knew, and running. She knows that in reality, Doyle had taken her way of life and she was very much so just a changed woman but going back to the BAU feels like a step in reclaiming her life. Like its time to stop running and time to start living again.

As the cab races down the highway and heads to Quantico, Emily is hit with a multitude of emotions. She’s excited to see the team again, her family again, but she knows it will all be different. It has to be. She’d died. There was a funeral. JJ and Hotch told her about it when they visited her at Bethesda to let her know the plan. 

She’d come back one day but for now it was safest for everyone to think that she was dead. It’s the best cover and the best way to keep her safe until they find Doyle. 

The team thought they were looking for her killer, to avenge her death. And now in 20 minutes she would walk into the conference room alive and well and show them that the last seven months have been a lie and they’ve been hunting down a criminal who hurt her, not someone who’d killed her. 

She takes a shaky breath, calming her nerves. There’s so much happening, and it seems like it’s filling the void in her chest, but she knows it’s only temporary. The team will react in different ways and most likely avoid her until they believe she’s really back and alive. It might feel like her loneliness is subsiding, that she can once again chose to be alone instead of forced into isolation, but she knows it’s an illusion. 

The loneliness will continue.

_A month later_

The loneliness does continue. But it also is alleviated a bit by Hotch and JJ. The two who knew the truth and can more easily accept her back into the fold. She finds herself spending more time with Hotch as time passes and she settles back into her life in Quantico.

It’s not the same, it’s not her old life, but it is her life again. She is Emily Prentiss, member of the BAU. And that feels right. This is her life, not running around Paris with a folder full of identities. 

And Aaron helps her make the transition. She starts coming over for dinner again, seeking out companionship after seven months of loneliness. It allows her to see Jack for herself and yes, he cries and needs it explained that just because Emily came back it doesn’t mean Haley will. That had been a rough night for all involved. Emily ended up staying the night, all three of them cuddled up on Aaron’s bed, needing the reminder that sometimes people do come home. 

It breaks her heart and Emily tried to spread that reminder more around the team. She gives Rossi advice, listens to Spencer, and goes through a recertification for Morgan. She does what she can, to remind them that she came home and she is here.

Aaron calls her out on it and knows that the transition back to her life can’t be easy. So he’s there for her. He keeps inviting her over for dinner, makes it an open one. She can take him up on it anytime she wants, no pressure. She draws back a little, clearly exhausted from trying to be there for everyone on the team and overextending herself, but he’s still there to make sure she goes home at a reasonable hour and eats and takes care of Sergio. 

It isn’t everything, she’s still lonely but its better. The ache that had seemed to permanently settle in her chest is starting to heal. Aaron’s a constant and JJ too, always having her over and making sure she’s okay. 

Slowly but surely, Emily goes from being lonely to choosing when she wants to be alone. That distinction is back in her life.


End file.
